Tag Archives: Ann Gaylia O’Barr

Hints Followed by Guesses

“. . .These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.”

(From T.S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages”

It seems several of earth’s lifetimes must have happened between 1990, the year I joined the U.S. Foreign Service, and today. The early 1990’s were an exciting watershed. The Soviet Union fell apart, and it seemed the old Cold War had ended without the devastating world war all feared. East and West Germany unified. The Berlin Wall between East and West Germany was destroyed, and tourists grabbed pieces to take home. The Baltic countries declared their independence.
Iraq invaded Kuwait, but the invasion would lead to the Gulf War the next year, with the U.S. and its allies sending troops to defeat Iraq.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
China was coming out of the destruction following the Tiananmen Square protests.
Democratic values, it seemed, had triumphed world wide.
In the technical world, though, technical advances would soon overturn our ordinary lives. The internet was on the horizon.
What happened as tech and the rest of the country overcame those bright beginnings?
Even as the world appeared militarily safer in the decades following, it seemed that in the U.S., people and their government became more and more divided between political parties and beliefs, leading to a deeply divided country.
Politically, we seem now to have found our way to chaos. Government agencies mandated by Congress fall at the drop of a hat—especially Elon Musk’s hat.
In these pessimistic days, it seems impossible that any sort of spiritual discipline could break out. Indeed, religious disciplines seem abandoned by more and more Americans, only a few practicing active religion these days.
But could those “dry salvages” or cargoes surprise? Is this salvage, a name for something preserved, waiting somewhere to be discovered?

Too Rich to Care?

Maybe we grew too rich to care. That is, enough of us became too rich to care. That is, to care for the less well off—in our town, in our country, in our world. Anybody walking down an urban American street may understand that plenty of people need help.

Our drug addicts need help. Who desires to be addicted to drugs or see their loved ones become addicted? Yet, in one of the richest countries in the world, we were unable to overcome the forces that decreased the ability to stay off drugs. We’ve heard a lot about stopping drugs from coming in—but if more of us had a purpose in life that involved contributing to society, we might never consider something like drugs, including alcohol.

When we gave the rich more ways to opt out of paying income taxes, we had less money to fund social security or deal with our ever increasing national debt. Or indeed, to fund programs to help addicts kick drug habits.

We also desire both less immigrants and less children. While our birth rate drops, we build walls to keep out migrants who could help make up for our decreasing births. That means, of course, less taxpayers for our increasingly elderly population—or to fund our military or programs to help recovering addicts.

We have increasingly seen our government as set up to help those who already have plenty to grab more. Eventually, though, those who don’t have, will outnumber those who do.

After the Second World War, our country was blessed with a flood of immigrants from countries devastated by that war. They worked in our factories—and also consumed the goods from those factories, contributing to a rising standard of living.

Immigration needs to be controlled, removed from the hands of traffickers, but immigration itself is an asset. It means growth, not only physically, but in new ideas and art as well as new workers and consumers. If we close off immigration entirely and see it as a curse to be overcome, we will die from a lack of growth in ideas as well as people.

We Need Immigrants

The United States, like many developed nations today, is facing population decline within its native born population. Fortunately, lots of people would like to immigrate here. Many of them have skills we need, such as nursing skills for an aging population and agricultural workers for our farms. Some have computer and other skills for higher level jobs.

Meanwhile, paths for legal immigration are narrow. The desire to immigrate, with no meaningful legal line to join for many, feeds irregular migration, leading to its control by gangs and sometimes drug dealers.

“States that focus on border restrictions, mass deportations, or the abrogation of legal protections for asylum seekers will fail to solve the problem. They will simply redirect it while creating a new host of problems that will, in the long term, feed the problem rather than solve it. They will empower criminal networks and black markets while leaving their own economies worse off. The system will continue to decay.” (“Migration Can Work for All; A plan for Replacing a Broken Global System,” Amy Pope, Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2025.)

Our current system feeds irregular migration, as family members migrate irregularly to stay with those already in the U.S. “That so many migrants who are undocumented find jobs in the informal markets of their destination countries signals an imbalance between legal immigration pathways and economic need . . .”

The author suggests one approach is for countries with labor shortages, such as the United States, to set up programs within the refugee sending countries to train would be immigrants for jobs needed in the receiving country. This would include preparing them for legal migration.

If reasonable pathways to migration are in place, countries will have more justification for shutting down the illegal ones. The idea is not to stop migration but to channel it, then work to shut down illegal migration traffic.

Migration from places with less possibility for improving one’s life to ones of greater possibility has been the norm since civilization began. Better to work with it for good.

Never Taking Free and Fair Elections for Granted

My mother was born in 1900 in Nashville, Tennessee. At that time, neither her mother, nor any other woman, could vote in national elections. Women gained that right when the Nineteenth Amendment to the constitution went into effect in August, 1920. Earlier that year, Tennessee had cast the 36th vote for its passage, the number needed for ratification. Overnight, the number of voters increased dramatically, by about eight million, as women took advantage of their new privilege.

As far as I know, my mother regularly cast a vote in every election for which she was eligible from that time on. That included voting all four times for Franklin Roosevelt. My father did also, but they split on the Eisenhower/Stevenson election. (Mom went for Stevenson, Dad for Eisenhower.) They peacefully accepted their political differences. I remember political discussions in our household as interesting exchanges of ideas, including ones about local elections. That is probably why I’ve voted in every election for which I’ve been eligible, including several times when I lived in non-democratic countries, by absentee ballot.

Tennessee, a “border” state, could certainly produce some interesting elections, such as the one in which Lamar Alexander defeated Ray Blanton. Blanton is remembered as the one who began releasing felons from prison, for cash, just before he was due to leave the governor’s office. As I remember, both Democrats and Republicans cooperated in an early, unannounced swearing in of Alexander, effectively preventing Blanton from releasing more felons. I stood on the steps of the Tennessee capitol with a huge crowd as Alexander later took the public oath of office.

Recently, serious allegations about the influence of unelected advisors on President Trump are causing controversy. Practices once considered sacrosanct, such as birthright citizenship, also are being questioned. Migrants, our positions on Israel/Palestine, and our support for Ukraine against Russia are other areas of contention.

“A republic if you can keep it” is the legendary answer Benjamin Franklin gave to one who asked “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” following the 1787 constitutional convention, setting up the beginning government for the American states.

Democracy is a blessing but never cheap or easy or guaranteed.

Why Me, Lord? (Kris Kristofferson)

Sometimes when the world seems to have reached a new level of desperation, I’m comforted by certain remembrances of my childhood. (I realize I’m fortunate in having those memories.)

When I was a small child, country music (maybe you call it folk music or something else) was a part of my life. I lived in a working class eastern suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. At the time, this kind of music was mostly followed by that same American kind of working class. The Grand Ole Opry was in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Saturday nights in downtown Nashville, a long time before its modern version in the Opryland amusement park. I attended this older version a few times, often to take visiting kinfolk, hungry for the South they had left for jobs on the West Coast.

A few of the stars on the Opry lived in our modest neighborhood, at least one within walking distance of our house. We thought of country music as a part of our ordinary culture.

So when the world’s and this nation’s troubles seem to overwhelm, I can sometimes find comfort in listening to that country music, either in older or newer versions.

Take Kris Kristofferson’s Why Me, Lord? One version is copied below. (Apologies if it’s preceded by an advertisement I couldn’t take out.) (Also that you may need earphones.

 

In a Time of Political Change

My Oxford English Dictionary defines hubris as “excessive pride or self-confidence.”
Pride in one’s nationhood is patriotic; excess pride can lead to harm for that nation as well as others. Nations as well as individuals can be tempted by hubris. Even as we begin new political terms for the presidency and members of Congress, we might consider the history of other countries when they reached new heights of power.

In the waning days of the 19th century, Britain indeed stood at the height of world power, her empire one on which the sun never set. In a few decades, however, the world would suffer two world wars as well as the rise of new political movements, bringing great changes to former world powers. Kipling’s poem would caution any world power, including the United States, to consider responsible uses of that power while they are able to do so.

Recessional

By Rudyard Kipling
1897

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Recent Batting Average for the Church in America

I find myself with sympathy for any new American member to our current group of Christian believers. One can only say that it surely is the attraction of Jesus that overcomes our sometimes less than loving presentation of the good news he brought and lived for us.

For a sober view of the Christian church in the United States in the last few years, listen to The New York Times columnist David Brooks:

“We religious people talk about virtue so much you’d think we’d behave better than nonreligious people. But that’s not been my experience. Over the past decade, especially in the American church, I’ve seen religious people behaving more dishonestly, and in some ways being more tolerant of sexual abuse. I sometimes joke that entering the church in 2013 was like investing in the stock market in 1929. My timing could have been better.” (David Brooks, “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I thought It Would Be,” The New York Times, December 19, 2004.)

Of course, our failings are not new. People calling themselves Christians have at times fought wars against each other, cast each other out of the church, and even tortured and burned fellow Christians at the stake because their theology was different from that of other Christians with political power.

Perhaps it’s helpful to remember, however, that plenty of Christians have indeed followed the Jesus way and ministered to the hungry, thirsty, lonely, imprisoned, unclothed, and those in need of good news. (Matthew 25)

I don’t think any civilization has, despite failings of Christians, come as far as nations when the gospel has been accepted by enough people practicing its teachings. We have what I would call an influential faith. I don’t think there is any such thing as a “Christian” nation. Worshiping political power is setting up a god other than Jesus. We can, however, manage to influence in ways that overcome the normal self-seeking ways of most earthly politics.

It is, after all, a call to earthly service, not to earthly power.

So, yes, there’s always room for one more sinner saved by grace.

What Is It About Money?

Obviously, we all need money to survive in the world we live in—money to pay the rent/mortgage, buy groceries and clothes, compensate our computer services provider, perhaps contribute to charity, and so on.

Some manage well on what their salaries/pensions/inheritance/savings allow them. Many others get by. Some suffer hardship, sometimes of circumstances not of their own making, like illness or physical loss. Others make unwise lifestyle choices that land them in poverty.

Although a few may live in religious or other communities where all is shared, most of us must take care of financial matters for ourselves and family members.

Almost all adults in the western world must deal with these matters, but some with more than adequate means seem to obsess with getting more. Or to using more than adequate means to gain power over the political process in order to encourage laws that favor their amassing even more wealth.

What is it about money that is so enticing to those who already have plenty of it?

Some very wealthy individuals do indeed share their wealth to fund programs for the less well-off. Some give huge amounts and others give less but nevertheless, the amount of charitable contributions is certainly meaningful. Those funds have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, provided rent assistance and low income housing, and set up college scholarships, among other worthy causes.

Wealth, it seems is not the culprit, but rather our attachment or lack of attachment to it.
Interesting, of course, because as Jesus pointed out, all of us leave it behind at death.
Regardless of which, if any, religious community you adhere to, you must leave any wealth behind. Beyond that is where faith takes us.

Fire-Bombed Voting Box

A few weeks ago, my husband and I cast votes in the November 5, 2024 elections. We had received our ballots by mail, discussed the candidates, then filled out our ballots. We walked a few blocks to the secured metal voting box across from our small town city hall and deposited them there.

The next day I read about an attempt to set fire to voting booths in another part of the state. One fire destroyed only three ballots; the other was more serious. The call went out for anyone using those boxes to see if they might need to replace a destroyed ballot. In addition, more boxes were being equipped with safety measures to make it difficult to set them on fire.

A camera had recorded the probable car driven by the vote destroyer.

I wondered: why would someone want to threaten the right to vote? To make our constitutional privilege more difficult?

Some might call for a return of the old-fashioned voting booth. That’s a valid position. Apparently, however, more people vote when done by a simple trip to a voting box, and such voting may be easier for those with busy schedules.

Regardless, what is so threatening about citizens casting ballots for their leaders?

To Make a Better Life

Sometime back before the American Revolution, my ancestors, probably including those of both English and Irish nationalities, immigrated to what would become the United States.

They were part of the great migration of European peoples to the Americas. Native Americans would suffer greatly, pushed further and further into less fertile areas, forced to give up sovereignty and lands.

Slaves and their descendants suffered also, shackled by prejudice that denied them the American dream.

For people like my ancestors, however, the new lands allowed them to flourish as they probably never would have in Europe. Like other immigrant families, some of my ancestors did better than others. A few became well-off, others became small farmers, others eventually landed in urban areas, becoming workers and small business owners, surviving both depression and times of war.

My own parents kept their home during the Great Depression of the thirties, saved by one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s new deal programs. Later, they managed to send my brother and me to college. We both enjoyed middle class American lives.

Not surprisingly, I have sympathy for immigrants. I think one of the greatest gifts the country has been granted is renewal brought about by managed immigration. Indeed, the castoffs of Nazi Germany, given sanctuary in the United States, helped power the defeat of that same regime.

Some of my beliefs, I freely admit, come from my Christian faith, a belief that those who are blessed are obligated to bless others. We the blessed, are called to share those blessings.

This country has allowed some to amass great wealth. I don’t believe that being rich is in itself a sin. I do believe it is a great responsibility. The responsibility is to choose between the path of the rich man in Jesus’ parable who ignored the poor seeking crumbs from his table, or that of the one known as the Good Samaritan, who chose to help the needy one he happened to meet.

But If Not

In one of the battles of World War II, the commander of a besieged British force radioed to his headquarters: “but if not.”

These words are found in the Christian Old Testament, in the third chapter of the book of Daniel. Three young Jewish men taken captive by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, refused to bow down to a statue of Nebuchadnezzar, set up for the people to worship. When Nebuchadnezzar heard of it, he ordered the men to be burned alive in a fiery furnace.

The men refused. They answered the king: “. . . our God . . . is able to deliver us . . . But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up.”

According to the Biblical passage, the men were miraculously rescued. However, the phrase “but if not” became a symbol for the British people in their great struggle with Hitler’s Nazism. They would stand against the might of his armies, even if Britain seemed close to being vanquished as a nation.

The origin of those words would not be recognized by many English speaking people today. We have lost much of our shared heritage.

Nevertheless, the words remain a symbol for those who struggle against the greed and selfishness and perverted power of this age, in what sometimes seems a losing struggle.

Bible Reading in Public Schools

I grew up a long time ago in Nashville, Tennessee. In my public schools in those days, a teacher often began the day with a reading from the Bible.

It was about as exciting as watching paint dry. I associated it with tasks like learning the multiplication tables.

Where Christ’s teachings did become alive was in many of my church child and youth groups. Teachers there loved both God and youth and believed in us. Some of them got creative with flannel board presentations or games. We shared in Sunday night gatherings, along with food, always a popular draw. (Food also appeared to be a popular draw with some of Jesus’ teachings. He appeared to enjoy feasts and celebrations.)

I think one practice to make Christianity disappear or at least lose its importance in society is to make its teachings compulsory–in the public schools and elsewhere.

Never associate it with fun or games or freedom to ask questions or to share hurts and vulnerabilities in voluntary gatherings. Don’t let it grow the way it did in early Christianity, from person to person, from what was not compulsory but from what was lived.

Make it appear as though the United States of America is a nation of one particular religion, instead of a nation of fallible human beings, where no religion is favored above another, where all are free to seek the truth as they wish. Where the founders understood the awful cost of religious wars in the old world.

Make sure people of other faiths feel that their faith is discriminated against—like the way I used to feel in other countries where another faith was favored. If we can discriminate, so can other nations.

 

Reading the Comics

Every Sunday morning a half hour or so before my husband and I leave for church, I wander down our walkway to the newspaper box next to the street. I grab the paper and begin scanning the headlines on the way back to the house. Later in the afternoon after church, I enjoy a leisurely newspaper read, including, of course, the comic strips.

During the week, I read a couple of newspapers on the web. I prefer traditional newspapers because I trust them more. It’s easier to sue newspapers for libel than some incognito writer of a wild story on the internet.

No doubt my majoring in print journalism many years ago in college contributes to my favoritism for traditional newspapers. One of two print newspapers in my city at the time actually hired me as a summer reporter (the Nashville Banner.) I began on the “obit” circuit: calling funeral homes to check on which Nashvillians had died during the week, whose passing should be noted in print. After a while, I graduated to interviewing citizens for human interest stories. My final summer on the paper, the editor let me cover a religious convention convening in the city.

Alas, I never became the journalist I had intended. However, I credit my newspaper experience with the regard for the truth pushed by that rough city editor under whom I worked.

What will the internet do for truthful reporting? I don’t know. However, we adjusted (sometimes after harming innocent groups, it will be admitted) to the rise of newspapers. They performed valuable service to the rough democracies rising in the western world. Mobs and political machines learned to fear the written word.

The trick today is sorting the wheat from the chaff, finding reputable news sources. Print newspapers are a good place to start.

 

Majority Rules or Does It?

Can the minority actually allow the majority to rule? Even in divisive issues like abortion, racism, and military action?

Our governing document, the U.S. Constitution, tends toward realism. The first words are: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . .”

The first union, under the Articles of Confederation, after the war for independence from Britain, was a failure. That union proved unworkable, more a collection of individual nation states failing to act as one nation.

This new attempt to create a “more perfect” union implied the impossibility of an actual perfect union. We are always striving for it.

Almost any issue can cause conflict. Most conflicts involve small numbers of people, however. Bigger issues often are ones of conscience.

On these bigger issues, some will strongly disagree with whatever action is taken. To use violence in response, however, only invites the other side toward actions of violence. Almost always, the conflict deepens, leading to harm of innocent people.

Perhaps the first reaction to what one considers an unjust law is patience and the realization that no one of us is perfect.

One avenue in such a time is speaking out. One of our most precious freedoms is freedom of speech. We use it to encourage what we believe are better laws and solutions, but in humility, knowing that our human reasoning is subject to error.

Some may consider civil disobedience—an act of simply not obeying the law, but not violently or in ways that would harm others.

For Americans, subject to strong beliefs and tendencies to see issues framed in black and white, restraint is difficult. Yet, patient wearing away is better by far than violence. Such patient action in the past has led to eventual major changes.

Humor, a Good Time, and the Christian Faith

Jesus apparently liked a good joke. He certainly showed humor in the ways he sometimes talked about the, perhaps, overly serious religious folks of his day.

He talked of people so concerned about the sin of their brother that they are unconcerned about their own sin. (“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7: 3, RSV) Someone walking along with a log sticking out of their eye becomes concerned about a speck in their brother’s eye.

Jesus apparently liked having a good time socially, too. He often was invited to banquets and feasts and seemed to enjoy them, sometimes taking opportunity to teach while attending them.

He also taught us to despise the rich man who refused to share his food with the poor man next to his table, while we are to welcome back the sinner who repents, inviting him in for feasting and rejoicing.

I grew up in a teetotaling Southern Baptist church, but we shared numerous picnics and dinners together. The Christians I knew liked laughing and jokes. My father never drank a glass of alcohol in his life, but he often attracted neighborhood friends by inviting them into our house for sharing jokes and fellowship on a cold winter evening. As a child, I sat next to my mother’s chair and enjoyed all the conversation and laughter.

In summer, we pulled up yard chairs on our porch and enjoyed the long summer evenings together.

I believe Jesus would have us share the Christian faith by having a good time with our friends and neighbors, whom we care for as Jesus did the people around him.

Two Flags and a Bible

In my childhood summers, we enjoyed swimming and playing games and freedom from the routines of school. In my particular church, “vacation Bible school” was also one of the summer’s activities. The sessions included Bible stories but also fictional stories to illustrate themes and morals. We had crafts and games, as well as refreshment time, always a favorite. Basically, my memories of those times were pleasant.

The beginning activity was gathering and marching into the auditorium behind two flags (Christian and American) and a Bible. We pledged allegiance to all three. It was a time of Cold War animosities, of Europe threatened with communist takeover. We knew the Soviets as enemies of Christianity. Easy to place America as right up there with church and Bible. After all, persecution of the church was real in some Soviet aligned countries.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more careful about where I place my country. That country has always been important to my family; many close relatives served in the armed forces, including my brother. Yet, my country, much as I love it, is not Christianity.

I think Christians have always been called to be good citizens of the countries in which they live, as was the early missionary, Paul, calling on his Roman citizenship to alleviate persecution.

However, serving country is not the same as serving God. America is not God. The temptation to worship other than God is a constant danger for Christians. America, however, is not a “Christian” nation. We revere our founding fathers and mothers, but some of them owned slaves. Some treated their workers poorly. Yet, one of the blessings of America is that we can change when confronted with wrong ways of doing things. That begins with loving and serving our country, but not to blindly worshiping it. No nation is completely “Christian.”

If Generals Were Appointed Like Ambassadors

About a third of U.S. ambassadors generally are political appointees. They haven’t come up through the ranks of diplomats with career experience serving the U.S. in foreign countries.

Some political appointees are well-suited to their jobs—having worked in international jobs or in other positions giving them experience in international relations.

Many, however, are appointed because they gave money to the political party in power. These appointments are a remnant of the old spoils system of political largesse. The appointees may know little about the culture of the countries where they will serve, but view their appointment as a kind of paid excursion for a foreign holiday.

What if generals were appointed based on how much money they spent on a presidential campaign? What if, say, a general in charge of U.S. forces in Europe was appointed because of leading in campaign contributions in Illinois for the president? Suppose the general in charge of U.S. forces in the Pacific was appointed because of contributing the most money to a candidate in a Florida race?

We expect our military leaders to be experienced in military matters. We should also expect our international representatives to be experienced in international relations.

 

Stubborn Religion

Trends and movements come and go. Within nations and kingdoms as within literature and child rearing, various leaders and thinkers shape different eras.

Yet, religious institutions remain. They wax and wane, seem to disappear for while but then return, more influential than ever.

The Renaissance swept away medieval life, making irrelevant for Europeans much of the daily concern with religion. Yet it was followed by the Reformation, imperfect and harmful in some of its birth pangs, yet refocusing ordinary people on the spiritual journey.

Then the enlightenment flourished, opening up inquiry and scientific exploration. It broke up much of the average person’s literal interpretation of Christian scriptures. It was followed, however, by Christian renewal, in which the Christian message was carried to every non-European corner of the earth.

World wide bloodletting, begun by so-called Christian nations, led to a turning away from organized religion. Now it seems moribund in many developed nations, but it flames anew in non-European settings.

Sojourners published several “Letters to the American church from Christians around the World.” (August 2019) Wrote Ismael Moreno, a Jesuit social activist in Honduras:

“We have faith that we will begin to see small lights shining all over the United States. They will be lights lit from the margins to confront the powerful, and they will illuminate the community that believes and hopes. Not the lights of shopping centers or merchants, but the lights of communities that embrace one another in tenderness.”

Christian Nationalism?

“To be a Christian (aka a Christ follower) means following a leader who never led an army, who never used a weapon, who opened the table to outsiders, and who told us to welcome the stranger (as a way of welcoming Jesus).” (Carlos A. Rodriguez, “It’s Time to Choose,” Sojo.net, Sept/Oct 2024.)

I grew up during the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union threatened to take over Europe. At the time, it was easy to identify Christ with those countries allied against Stalin and other Soviet leaders. I read of children my age in Berlin who waited for American and allied nations to drop supplies and overcome the Soviet blockade of parts of Berlin. They  depended on the airlifts to survive.

With these examples, we easily identified the Soviets with enemies of Christ. Surely Jesus would not want little children to starve.

However, any human grouping, even a Christian one, is subject to the temptation of worshiping the group instead of Christ. Those early Christians, persecuted and often despised, persevered by loving even their enemies. Yet, as their bravery and kindness won that battle, some later fell victim to the temptation to serve earthly kingdoms instead of Christ.

The temptation is with us today, when we make the United States our focus instead of Christ. As Christians, we are surely required take advantage of our citizenship. However, if we identify country with God, we commit a form of idolatry.

Rather, we perform better citizenship if we join to create a government that takes care of widows and orphans and strangers. Just as many of our ancestors came to this country to seek a better way of life, we also will seek just, open, and orderly ways to help those today who wish to come to this country. In the long run, they will bless us. We should know, having been blessed ourselves by our immigrant ancestors.

Print versus Digital

A long time ago, my home town of Nashville, Tennessee, had two print newspapers. The editorial boards were usually on opposite sides of issues—local, national, international. One paper generally favored the Democrats while the other cheered for the Republicans.

Today, Nashvillians are fortunate to still have one print newspaper, though you can read it digitally as well. Of course, a great many people don’t read any newspaper. Their news comes from the internet.

That practice gives freedom to anyone to express political and other opinions. No editorial board or owners oversee what goes into public space.

Of course, one is free to lie, if they wish. “Fact checkers” can’t possibly keep up with all of us spouting opinions, as, indeed, I am doing here.

Giving anyone with a computer access to public space is both freeing and dangerous. All sides of any issue can be debated. Unknowns as well as the powerful can join in.

Newspapers printing lies can be sued and, if found guilty of falsehood, may be required to compensate the one they maligned. While one can still sue someone who spreads falsehoods about them on the internet, individuals tend to lack resources to do so.

Centuries ago, the invention of moveable type gave rise to an explosion of new ideas and eventually to more political freedom for ordinary individuals. Unfortunately, the journey to this freedom included wars and terrible suffering for some.

Today’s internet may be yesterday’s moveable type. Let us hope we respect its power and learn to use it wisely. In fact, returning to that print newspaper (via internet or delivered to our homes as a paper copy) for our first look at the news may be wise: it takes more time but tends to call for deeper reflection.